This catchphrase is dangerous. As a lover of digging into datasets to uncover the stories, this ubiquitous catchphrase irks me. Data cannot capture the full story, and expectations that it can polarizes people.

Reality is beautifully complex with infinite connections and nuances that, to replicate, needs both an infinite amount of data and an infinite number of analysis monkeys. Stating that decisions should be based on data gives data analysis a bad name.

Mathematicians do not rule the world

People in power need to lead, inspire, negotiate, and be diplomatic. It is not necessary to know about Bayesian probability to succeed in their role. In fact, mathematicians have a bad rep at schmoozing. (How can you identify an outgoing mathematician? They look at your shoes instead of theirs.)

It is not just people in power. Most people do not have the kind of training to intuitively understand mathematical models or statistical analysis. And yes, it would be great if everyone did. But that’s not going to happen any time soon. And whether we all could is a conversation for another blog entry.

Most people I’ve met recognize the importance of maths models and data analysis (albeit my sample is very biased!), and they’re willing to listen. But if the results suggests something that is against their known reality, it discredits maths models and data analysis.

This disconnect in a vital part of the process, and it not acknowledged for the necessity and enlightening process that it is. Actionable insight is a team effort across different experts. Give me a dataset and I can happily play with it for hours. But my real joy comes from creating something with people who know about the reality –  I learn from them and in turn we both learn from the data.

Let’s create something beautiful together!

Imagine water flowing on the ground. There’s not rocks nor anything to guide the water flow. I see my role as creating a form from this. I talk to people to learn, “Oh this isn’t possible? Okay, I’ll put a rock here so the water can’t go there.”, “Oh this is an important dynamic? Okay, I’ll dig a trench here to make sure these components are connected.”. Not every sculpting effort will be perfectly placed initially. But as a joint project, we can create an elegant water feature that takes us from A to B. And in my fortunate experience, this process engages and captivates everyone involved.

Towards a future with “Data informed decisions”

Let’s update the catchphrase! Any model, any analysis, is not a blueprint. It is only information. Information that cannot be obtained any other way. So it is vitally important. Moreover, the learnings gathered during this creative collaboration mean that critical thinking is slowly but surely permeating into decision making systems, which benefits us all! And at the end of the day, I’m not saying anything new. ‘Evidence-based practice‘ has been championed since the 1970s and 80s (by an epidemiologist no less).